


Dear Sherlock

by DataTrekker



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Being Lost, Big Brother Mycroft, Brotherhood, Canonical Character Death, Communication Failure, Depressing, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Holmes Brothers, Hope, Letters, Loss, Regret, Sad, Tragedy, Tragedy: Death of a Brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 23:18:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DataTrekker/pseuds/DataTrekker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know now I write you letters, Brother. Whenever I have free time I put pen to paper. Letters you will never see. We can never allow that. Not now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Sherlock

From the Office of Her Royal Majesty

 Date: Unknown

To my dearest brother, Sherlock. 

It’s been awhile since we buried your ‘body,’ brother. Even though I do not think it was truly yours, it felt so. I applaud your skills. Part of me, well most of my mind, thinks you have a trick up your sleeve but being your brother I will never know. It’s far too long, though, I think, since Mummy’s seen you. Good God does she cry. She is constantly ringing me in tears. Sometimes she even blames me for what you did. That I didn’t protect you enough. She can be so amazingly thick I wonder how she ever birthed such geniuses like us. Her weeping is getting to me, though. It disrupts my sleep when she calls at night, unable to sleep, as if spreading her illness is somehow beneficial to her. If you had truly died I just wish you could have taken her with you, I’d rather be alone than have her constantly ringing. It’s like having my own personal harpie to remind me of all the things I’ve had to sacrifice for us both. I imagine this is how Jesus feels whenever he sees crosses, “That’s right, carry the symbol of my suffering around to lighten yours.” She’s a horrid thing but at least she isn’t Father. I occasionally imagine what he would do, how he’d look, if he were still alive. 

In those moments when I’m alone, and the sky is weeping like our mother, my desk is empty and so is this pitiful excuse for a heart, I think of you and him. All three of us. The Holmes Boys. And what a dreadful thing it is, to hope as I do. To dream of you as I do. To miss you like I do. And I even miss him because then I could at least look into his eyes and see you, just a fraction of you, the intelligence without the maddening coldness. To imagine such a man, colder than us, is getting harder but like all things memories fade and mine of him are fading faster than I thought possible. To think of how I clutched to my hatred of him and now he is a figure of fond memories. The man who stole me away from you is now a fond memory. I cannot stress that enough. A fond memory. Him. The man we thought was a monster in childhood. This is another side-effect of loss, holding dear things that once sparked anger because they remind me of you when you were alive.

What a laugh. You were always alive. Always active, even in your lethargic laying about you were active, in your mind, just like I. Always plotting and scheming. You would make a wonderful politician. I wish you had picked a different profession, which is an incredibly polite, and insultingly incorrect, way to describe your ‘job.’ A detective… Honestly, did you think it would impress people? You always had felt the need to show off, even if you said otherwise. Is that what we are, Sherlock? Men of 

I think of you often. I see you whenever I see a dead body. Mind you, I used to think such things before you died but that was in another light. A brighter one, much more comedic and with the luxury of being able to sit on my exquisite high horse. But I cannot do that now. I took such visions for granted. I cannot even do the simplest things, like look down upon you anymore. For some reason, unknown to me, I think of you as precious, something not to be mocked. Only in death were you sanctified. Among the living you were an outcast, a freak, like me. But whereas I moved along the path to success and admiration you chose a different one. One that led you far from my side and as much as I tried to guide you back you strayed further.

I do miss you, sometimes, Sherlock, my brother.

I saw John once. Only once. He shouted at me saying I didn’t do enough. Everyone seems to be saying that and it’s getting hard to ignore them. I tried, my brother, I tried. You know that, I think. You know I did all I could but you would have still blamed me, like they did. But would you really? Would you really blame me, if we were alone, if we knew no one could never see or hear us? But alas that can never be and as a result this is what we are. What we were. And , should you be alive, all we ever will be. Toxic to each other.

I think, my brother, one of the worst parts about this toxic relationship is that you have every right to not trust me and I can never blame you for that. At no point have I shown my trustworthiness and as the institution I protect bleeds from infestations of spies and traitors I know you could have never come to me for anything whatsoever. In order to remain unseen you must not exist. This must be a toxic relationship for us both. We can never properly be brothers. That does not mean I don’t weep occasionally at your grave but it means that you can never see me do so, you must never be seen to care for me in the remotest sense. All hopes of any sense of normality were dashed so many years ago. Sometimes I wonder if you know I am playing a game just to protect you. Which has tragically failed us both. I don’t think you do know, I think you do see me as the Iceman but that is the role I play. We play opposites and we can never truly know what the other feels. At least it kept my skills sharp.

We are so pathetically tragic, brother. So tragic. And yet there is nothing we can do for this tragedy either. We must play it out anyway, like characters who see the end of the play but whose strings are being forced. We cannot resist these movements for they are all that protect us from each other.  
God do I miss you, Sherlock. I miss having someone to check up on. I miss the distraction of wanting to protect you anyway. I miss the foolish hopefulness that maybe, when we are old, that we would reconcile? But no, never shall that happen now. All this hoping has done neither of us any good.

No. No it has done one of us good, yourself. Because you hoped by jumping your friends would be spared. And they have been. But I have not. I have not been spared of your aftermath. I had to tie up all your loose ends. If you saw the end coming you knew I would do this and you couldn’t risk anyone possibly knowing you knew. John’s a mess. I pay the rent because I haven’t the heart to kick John out. But life carries on, Sherlock. You knew that, in fact you were counting on it, counting on the normal doing something you never could. You could never let go of a damn thing in your life and you carried every memory like I do, every damn one. Memories you could unheave but one you never dared to because that was all you had.  
But then you met Doctor Watson. And who do I have, hmm? I have no one to fall back on. No one to miss me, naturally I’m excluding the obvious answer of our parents. Anthea will miss me but move on, like you expected John to. And myself? Perhaps I’ll get a private state funeral? But only the cold men I hated will be there with their perfectly plastered masks thinking “I won’t be the next one, it won’t be me.” But there in the crowd of smiling doubters it will be one of them, slowly diminished until only a few remain, who oversee the new wave of recruits.

I won’t have a single person to miss me, Sherlock. Would you miss me if I were to die? I’m so infrequent with my visits you probably wouldn’t notice for years. You’d find my body and bring it back for Mummy, I hope. Bury me next to Father.

What am I saying? Speaking if you were alive… Even if you are I must carry on like you are not, I cannot let these emotions overwhelm me. I bottle it all away, the guilt, the shame, the grief. I bury it all away and at 7 o’clock on a Sunday night I let it all out. Every Sunday night in that blasted place I call a home I spend an hour or two in front of the fire reminiscing about you. And if I’m away I keep it bottled until the next Sunday. I could be away for months and never think about you a single time but when I am home, home in London, I think of you more than I will ever care to admit to anything other than these burnable sheets of deceit.

Signed Mycroft Holmes


End file.
